About 100 Indian Army soldiers will visit Hawaii in July to participate in a several week-long exercise with their US counterparts.
It would be the largest contingent of Indian Army soldiers to visit the US ever. Bilateral contacts in the defence field continue to be on the upswing.
From baby steps of minimal contacts and basic training and sharing of information, the Indo-US military exercises are now stepping onto more sophisticated joint operations and counter-terrorist actions. And the two sides are also steadily increasing the size of units in joint exercises.
The Hawaii exercise would follow up on the recently concluded first ever Indo-US infantry exercise at Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School at Vairangte. The three-week long joint exercise was the longest and largest exercise between militaries of India and US. While the US had over 60 soldiers, the Indian side was represented by over 120 soldiers at Vairangte.
"The July visit would be reciprocal. It would not only have an immense symbolic value but would also provide Indian Army with fresh insights into the way world's most powerful nation trains its soldiers," says a senior army officer. He said a company group, approximately 100 soldiers, would be going to Hawaii for the joint exercise. A regular company in an Indian infantry unit has about 120 soldiers.
The joint exercise at Vairangte has been of immense help to the Indian Army, especially to measure its soldiers and their skills with that of the Americans. The buddy system, where an Indian and a US soldier were paired for exercises, helped in creating deeper understanding between the two units in exercise, the officer said. "Language was a minor barrier between the soldiers but it was overcome by the competing professionalism on either side," he said.
At the March27-April 17 exercises at Vairangte, code named 'Yudh Abhyas', the two sides carried out intense operations in all aspects of counter-insurgency.
The infantry exercises are very significant in the burgeoning Indo-US military relations because it is where the two sides get a chance to develop large-scale on-ground inter-operability. Till the Vairangte exercises, all the army exercises between the two sides have involved only special forces, which by their very nature operate only in small numbers.
According to a senior Indian official, in the stages after July exercise, the two sides would look at "bigger participation," taking the number of soldiers participating in joint exercises from a hundred to almost 1000, that is a full size infantry battalion of the army. "That is a little far in future but it is definitely in our radar," the official said.
